Uconn

Refs' no-call works against Huskies BY ROGER CLEAVELANDRepublican-American

Connecticut reacts after their their loss in the Big East Conference women's tournament championship to Notre Dame in an NCAA college basketball game in Hartford, Conn., Tuesday, March 12, 2013. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

HARTFORD — Once again, a failure to execute hurt the Huskies, but it wasn't due to a lack of trying.

UConn had only five second-half fouls against Notre Dame on Tuesday night, meaning the Huskies had one foul to give before sending the Irish to the foul line. So when Notre Dame's Skylar Diggins stole an errant Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis pass with six seconds to play, the Huskies could have fouled Diggins to keep her from driving up court and making the pass to Natalie Achonwa for the game-winning basket.

Had they fouled, Notre Dame would have had to take the ball out of bounds with only a few seconds to play, and the UConn defense could have gotten set.

"I knew we had a foul to give and that was the plan," Bria Hartley said. "The ref didn't call it. So, no (there was no foul). I tried, but I'm not going to use that as an excuse. There were a bunch of other plays that should've been made."

Ironically, UConn coach Geno Auriemma has spent the last couple seasons pointing out how every team that plays the Irish gets called for an inordinate number of fouls giving Notre Dame a huge disparity in free throws.

"I think we fouled her three times," Auriemma said. "And I guess it took a long time for them not to call fouls on us, but they picked the worst time. I think we fouled her three times. We just tried to not make it look intentional. But as it turned out we would've had to tackle her for them to call it. But we tried. We knew we had to foul to give and we saved it to the end. And like so many of these games, it just wasn't meant to be."

All-Tournament team: Notre Dame junior Kayla McBride was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. She was clearly the best player on the court Tuesday in the final as she scored a game-high 23 points on 11-for-25 shooting.

The rest of the All-Tournament team included Diggins and Jewell Loyd from Notre Dame, Stefanie Dolson and Breanna Stewart from UConn and Kayla Alexander from Syracuse.

Fond farewell: The Huskies will remain as the core member of the old Big East, but with the Catholic 7 leaving and taking the Big East name with it, and with Notre Dame leaving after this season for the ACC, the most storied conference in women's basketball history is now nothing more than a memory.

"I have seen it all in the last 28 years," Auriemma said. "I have seen a lot of teams come and go. Some teams left before they even had a chance to play any games in our league. All in all, when they write the history of the conference, it is going to have a pretty storied past, and it is going to have a great legacy in the history of women's basketball. For a league that came out of nowhere, they sure made a huge impact on the whole sport."

Friendly Faris Foe: Tuesday's game marked the 14th time Kelly Faris played the Irish during her UConn career. She won the first six games she played against them then lost six of her last seven going into the Big East final.

"I wouldn't care if it was Louisville or Duke we were losing to," Faris said. "If you lose to a team that many times, it will get under your skin and frustrate you."

Growing up in Indiana three hours from Notre Dame and finishing second to Skylar Diggins in voting for Miss Indiana Basketball her senior season at Heritage Christian High, Faris wasn't a huge fan of the Irish women's basketball team.

"I was more in tune to their football when I was younger," Faris said. "Rudy. Everybody watched Rudy. I was more into the football, Rudy, and their tradition. I love tradition. Other than that…"

Faris was offered a scholarship by Notre Dame and did have the Irish as one of her final three choices, but ultimately her decision came down to Purdue and UConn.

"At that point, I was happy to have anyone recruit me," Faris said. "It's a great school. It's a great program. When you're in high school and you have top-notch programs looking at you, it's exciting. You feel honored that they look at you."

As for playing the Irish 14 times, she's enjoyed the challenge.

"It's great to have good, competitive games," Faris said. "You can only have so many games that you know will be a blowout. The games that will make us tougher, that go three overtimes, those will make us better down the road."

New home: This year marked the final year of the contract to hold the Big East Tournament at the XL Center, and now the league is scrambling to gather as much information as possible to determine where to hold next year's tourney. Connecticut remains a strong possibility either at the XL Center or at Mohegan Sun Arena, but league is keeping an open mind.

"I think as we start working through the next phase of where our women's basketball championship will be held, we will be looking at a number o venues to do due diligence with, and we will make a decision at our annual meeting in Ponte Vedra (Fla.) at the end of May (19-22)," Associate Commission Danielle Donehew said.

The Big East has extolled the virtues of the Connecticut fan base for years. The willingness of the fans to make the tournament the most attended of any conference in the country caused the Big East to play in Hartford 10 years.

"Certainly fan base is one of the most important matrix when you are trying to determine a conference championship site to make sure we have a full arena ready to support our student athletes from an emotional support standpoint and from a financial standpoint in terms of running a successful and efficient tournament," Donehew said. "But you also eluded to our expanding footprint in terms of South and West so we will have to consider other parts of the country to house the championship."

Donehew said at this point conference officials have not narrowed the list of potential venues but rather are keeping an open mind to allow the new schools an opportunity to give input. Holding the tournament back-to-back with the men's tournament at the same venue is a possibility. Hartford and Memphis have been rumored as sites for the men.

The conference wants to make sure not to overtax one fan base, however, and hurt both the men's and women's tournaments financially.

In the past there was great resistance from schools to hold the tournament at Mohegan Sun, but it is possibility new schools will be more amenable to it so the conference will reconsider it.

"I think yes," Donehew said. "I think we need to include venues we have used in the past that have been good to us and where we have been very successful at in the past, and I think we also need to consider venues we have never been to before. A place like Mohegan I would hope would certainly be on the list for consideration."

Duplicating the success: Auriemma said it is crazy to think that the conference will no longer be the same, but he believes the new conference can't be any worse off than the Big East was when he first arrived and only two teams were going to the NCAA Tournament.

Back then the conference tournament rotated so that each member school had a chance to host.

"And it was small time," Auriemma said. "It was very much unlike anything that we have today. And back then if you would've said to all those schools, 'Hey, you know what? For a whole bunch of years you guys are going to have this tournament in Hartford and there's going to be 10,000, 11,000 people there and ESPN is going to televise the semifinals and the finals,' they would've told you that you were out of your mind.

"ESPN didn't televise any of those games. Nobody televised any of those games. And here we are today, and I like to think we had a lot to do with that. So now it's over. And it's time to start over again.''

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linda wrote on Mar 13, 2013 9:44 AM:

" I'm confused by the headline-was there a foul that wasn't called that would have set that scenario in motion? I saw the game and didn't see one, but if that is the case, I'd be happy to weigh in on my pet peeve of officiating that decides the outcome of contests! "

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